by Regina Scott
“What else can I do to help?” he asked.
“I thought you wanted to get over to the mill about that job,” she said.
He nodded. “I will later. Right now, I’m more concerned about you. Did you even sleep last night?”
“For several hours,” she admitted, surprised by the question. She stifled a yawn, then dropped her hand. “I’m fine, and there’s work to be done.”
He raised his head. “Then let me help.”
Perhaps she should. Perhaps if he knew just how hard she worked, it would spur him to find other employment.
“Very well,” she said. “You can start the laundry.”
He followed her through the kitchen to the fenced rear yard. Like much of Seattle, the ground was mostly black dirt, but she’d marked off a spot for a garden next year, beside the chicken coop. Her hens fluttered out of her way now, then went back to scratching and pecking.
Ducking under the lines she’d strung from post to post, Maddie led Michael to the shed and pointed to the burlap sacks piled on the floor. “That’s the latest batch, one sack to a customer, so see that you don’t mix them up. Mr. Hennessy will not be pleased to receive Mr. Weinclef’s shirts back.”
“Wrong color?” Michael teased, poking at the lowest sack with his boot.
“Wrong size,” Maddie said. She nodded to the wooden tubs hanging from nails on the walls. “Those are for the washing. Set them in the yard, and fill one with water hot from the stove and one with cold water from the pump. You can bring in a load of firewood as well. Call me when you’re ready to wash.”
He snapped her a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Not sure what to expect from him, she went to check on her dough.
A short while later, Ciara and Aiden came into the kitchen just as Michael called from the yard. Maddie motioned her brother and sister to come with her to see what Michael had accomplished.
He had set the tubs side by side just beyond the doorway. She could see the steam rising from the largest tub into a heavy sky that threatened more rain. She bent to open one of the sacks he’d piled up nearby.
“Sort the clothes by color and material,” she explained. “Never wash the red flannels with anything but other red flannels. They turn everything else pink.”
Aiden made a face. “Ew!”
“Exactly what my customers say,” Maddie assured him with a grin. “Hot first to get out the dirt, like this.” She tossed the flannels into the water, took a paddle from the side of the shed and pushed the cloth around in the water. “If you spot a stain, take out the bar of soap and scrub. I’ve a washboard over there for the worst of it. When you’re ready, put the clothes in the cold water to rinse.” She tightened her grip and scooped the mass out with the paddle, shoulders bunching with the weight.
Michael took the load from her with ease and swung the sodden clothes into the second tub.
Maddie peered into the first and nodded. “The water’s not too dirty. Drop in the next set while the first soaks in the rinse. If the water gets too dirty, dump it on the garden patch and start over. Run each piece through the mangle to press out the water, then hang it to dry on the line. If it starts to rain, bring everything inside and hang the clothes in the kitchen.”
Michael wiped damp hair from his brow and drew in a breath as if daunted simply by the thought of all that work. “How often do you do this?”
“Three times a week,” Maddie said. “I’d do it more often, but it takes too long to dry the clothes, and it rains so much here that some weeks I can barely find time between storms.”
He glanced at the tubs. “I think I have it. Go ahead with your work inside. I’ll call if I have questions, and you can check on me when you have a moment.”
He could be sure she would. She’d built her list of customers from people she’d met aboard ship; they had become friends over the months at sea. She wasn’t about to lose one of them to mishandling, not when she needed every penny.
But as she stepped away from the tubs, she caught Michael watching her as if she was something quite extraordinary, and her face felt as if she’d been the one laboring over the laundry.
* * *
Michael heaved a mass of red flannel shirts from the hot water to the cold, leaving a wash of pink behind. How did she do this? Even on a cool day like today, laboring over the steaming water set him sweating. The lye soap burned when he splashed some of the suds against his hand, and he had to plunge his arm into the cold water to clear the pain. And the smell! He wasn’t sure what her customers did all day, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it didn’t involve shoveling manure for a herd of cattle.
He wrung out the first batch of clothes and laid it over the lines to dry. He was dragging the second tub to the alley behind the shop to dump, having already flooded the garden patch, when he heard a protest.
“Will you be washing me boots now too?”
Michael glanced up with a grin at his friend Patrick, battered top hat on his short, wavy blond hair. The other Irishman leaned against the fence, slender body covered in a brown wool coat and plaid trousers. His green eyes crinkled with laughter.
“Afraid of a good cleaning, are you?” Michael challenged, flipping the empty tub at his friend as if ready to give him a good dousing.
Patrick ducked away, then straightened to shift the sack he was holding over his shoulder. “Afraid of nothing, and you know it.” He came to a stop in front of Michael and tipped his clean-shaven chin at the tub. “What exactly does she have you doing to work off your passage?”
“Laundry,” Michael said, turning for the yard.
Patrick clutched his chest over his heart. “Oh, the horror of it! Can you not escape?” He followed Michael into the yard and shut the gate behind him, pausing to glance around at the space. At the sight of him, the chickens ran clucking back into their coop.
“It’s my duty,” Michael assured him. He rummaged through the remaining clothes and dumped them into the hot water before carrying the empty tub to the pump to fill. “And how goes it with you? Any job prospects yet?”
Patrick glanced up at the sky as if gauging how much rain would be falling any moment. “Oh, you know, this and that. I’m making do as we did in New York. In fact, some of the fellows at the boardinghouse gave me a penny to bring over their laundry.” He lowered his gaze and tossed the sack onto the pile, then bent to help Michael position the tub under the iron pump. “What of you? Have you been able to cut her apron strings to look for work?”
“She isn’t tying me here,” Michael told him, pumping the curved handle up and down until cool water splashed into the tub. “Working was my idea. It’s the least I can do after she paid my way.”
“I suppose,” Patrick said, sounding none too sure of the matter. Then he brightened. “Ah, but I found some of our own.”
Michael straightened from the pump. “Relatives or Irishmen?”
“Same thing in my book,” Patrick said. “Several fellows at that mill of theirs and one of the shopkeepers, if you can believe it. They haven’t been through what we did in New York, but they have possibilities, though none were in a position to offer employment.”
Like him, Michael knew, Patrick missed the gathering of friends and family. At times, the camaraderie had been the only thing to make life bearable in New York. Perhaps that’s why it had hurt so much to lose it.
“I’m glad you’re making friends,” Michael said, bending to drag the tub back to its place beside the hot water. “Now all we have to do is find work.”
“Looks like you already found plenty.” Patrick nodded toward the tubs. “Michael Haggerty, laundress. Never did I think to see the day.”
“And what would you be having against an honest day’s work, me good man?” Maddie demanded. Michael looked up to find that she’d come out of the bak
ery, with Ciara and Michael right behind her. She must have caught the end of their conversation.
Patrick whipped the hat off his head, setting his blond hair fluttering in the rising breeze. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” he said as Maddie approached. “I never meant to disparage honest work or the fine ladies who launder.”
Maddie’s look softened as she reached their sides. “Honest work it may be, but hot and hard. I’ll be thanking you, Mr. Haggerty, for your help.”
She made it sound as if he’d done the work from kindness instead of duty. “No trouble at all,” he said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Maddie, this is my friend Patrick Flannery, the one who traveled from New York with us.”
Maddie inclined her head, but Ciara scuttled forward, brown eyes tilted up in delight. “How nice to see you again, Mr. Flannery.”
“And you as well, Miss Ciara,” he said, though his gaze remained on Maddie. “How is it that in all those long months at sea, you were never mentioning how pretty your sister is?”
Ciara flinched, but Aiden wrinkled his nose. “Maddie’s not pretty. She’s just Maddie.”
“Spoken like a brother,” Maddie said with a smile to Aiden. “And I’m not accounted the beauty in the family. Sure-n but I’ll leave that place to Ciara.”
Ciara blushed as she peered up at Patrick through her long brown lashes, obviously trying to see how he’d take the statement. Michael and his friend had noticed the girl’s infatuation with Patrick aboard ship, and Patrick had always been kind but careful to remember she was still a child.
“Very wise of you, to be sure, Miss O’Rourke,” Patrick said with a smile to Ciara. “And you, Miss Ciara, you had better watch yourself. I hear they marry young in Seattle. There will be suitors lining up at your door before you know it.”
Aiden made a gagging sound.
“I don’t need suitors,” Ciara said with a toss of her brown braid. “I know who I want to marry.” She fluttered her lashes at Patrick, who once more consulted the clouds.
“Have you never heard of biding your time?” Maddie asked, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You’ve years yet before you must make such a decision.”
“Decades,” Patrick told the clouds. “Why, you may not know even when you’re as old as Michael and me.” He glanced at Michael with a laugh.
Ciara sagged, heaving a sigh that lifted her slender shoulders in the blue cotton gown.
Michael had pity on her. “I’ve been going in and out a lot, Ciara. Make sure Amelia Batterby is safe.”
Ciara stiffened. “You better not have let her out!” Lifting her skirts, she ran for the door, Aiden right behind her.
“Another fair lady?” Patrick guessed with a look to Maddie.
“A cat,” Maddie confessed. “And one who looks to be greatly spoiled now that my brother and sister are here. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Flannery, but I have dough on the rise, and I should see to it.” With a nod to them both, she followed her siblings to the door.
Patrick watched her go. “So that’s why laundry suddenly holds such a fascination.”
Michael shoved the paddle into the water. “I’m working off a debt, remember?”
“A debt you could pay in good time if you were earning money working elsewhere,” Patrick pointed out.
“And abandon Ciara and Aiden?” Michael protested, smashing the clothes around the tub. “They’ve been through enough.”
“And are now safely delivered to their beloved sister,” Patrick pointed out. “You can stop your protests. I see the attraction, I truly do.”
Michael stepped away from the tub and lowered his voice. “Do you honestly think I’d allow another woman to affect my decisions after what happened with Katie?”
Patrick shrugged. “Katie was directed by her father’s ambitions as much as her own desires to prove herself an ally to the Dead Rabbits and earn their favor. I have a feeling Maddie O’Rourke makes up her own mind.”
“I make up my own mind as well,” Michael said. “I’m working off my debt. Nothing more.”
“Fine,” Patrick said. “Then you won’t mind if I begin paying my respects to the lady.”
He shouldn’t mind. He had no intentions of courting. Besides, by the way Maddie had held her own against the combined forces of Seattle’s most determined would-be grooms, Patrick stood little chance of winning her heart.
Yet the idea that his friend would court the energetic redhead only made Michael’s gut churn. It seemed some part of him minded a great deal. And that was not to be borne.
“Suit yourself,” Michael told him. “Just remember—she and Ciara and Aiden have been through a great deal, losing their parents, leaving everything they’ve known to start anew. I’ll thank you not to be bringing trouble to their door.”
“Me?” Patrick’s green eyes were guileless. “And what trouble would I be bringing?”
Michael didn’t answer. Truth be told, he thought the most likely trouble would come from Maddie O’Rourke and the feelings she was raising in him.
Chapter Seven
Maddie shut the back door firmly behind her. So that was Michael’s friend from New York. Patrick Flannery was a handsome fellow with his thick blond hair as warm as sunlight and his winning ways. What change in circumstance had brought him west? Somehow she didn’t think it was a faithless fiancée like in Michael’s case. Patrick wouldn’t be the one with a broken heart. He’d be the one to break hearts.
But not Ciara’s. Maddie had seen how her little sister looked at the brash Irishman. The girl clearly had a bad case of calf love, that wide-eyed admiration that struck so many young ladies her age. By the way Michael had frowned at the pair, he wasn’t encouraging it, and neither would Maddie. No matter Seattle’s dearth of marriageable misses, Ciara had a lot of growing up to do before she was old enough to start courting.
“She’s safe,” Ciara declared, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen, arm hugging Amelia Batterby close. The amber-eyed shorthair regarded Maddie, tail twitching, obviously unamused.
“Good,” Maddie said, pushing off from the door. “Set her down now so she can earn her keep.”
Ciara gave the cat one more stroke on her silky head before depositing her on the floor. Amelia Batterby stalked off, tail high and steps stiff with dignity.
“Go find a mouse to harass,” Maddie called after her. “Better yet, find two.”
Ciara shuddered. “Poor mice. I hope she doesn’t find any.”
“Poor us,” Maddie corrected her. “Mice eat what I need to be baking.”
Ciara wandered past her to the window overlooking the rear yard. “I do hope Patrick finds work.”
“Patrick, is it now?” Maddie challenged, passing the mounds of cloth-covered dough on her way toward the stairs. “Sure-n Mr. Flannery deserves more respect.”
Ciara sniffed, gaze out the window. “He calls me Ciara.”
“He called you Miss Ciara a moment ago,” Maddie replied. “That’s a sign of respect too. Now come along. I want to see what dresses you brought so we know if you have enough for school.”
Ciara brightened as she turned from the window. Maddie guessed it was at the possibility of new clothes, but her sister’s words as she followed Maddie up the stairs proved the direction of the girl’s thoughts. “I never knew saying Miss was a sign of respect. How sweet of Patrick.”
Maddie paused, concern rising like her dough. “So he’s given you leave to use his first name?”
Red flared in her sister’s cheeks. “No.”
She drew in a breath and lifted her skirts to step into the room. “Then it’s Mr. Flannery, my girl. And that’s that.”
She could hear her sister’s sigh behind her. “You don’t understand. You’re too old. Are there any girls my age in Seattle?”
; Though she nearly choked at the idea of being aged, Maddie could almost feel the loneliness seeping out of the girl like mist from the Sound on a cool night.
“Not many,” she acknowledged, heading for Ciara’s room. “There are only a few families, and most of them have sons and daughters who were big enough to cross the country with them in covered wagons, so they’re now older than you. The rest of the children were born here in the last eight or nine years, making them younger than you. But if there are girls your age, you’ll meet them when you go to school Monday.”
A thump came from the other side of the wall, and Maddie frowned at Aiden’s closed door. “What’s your brother doing?”
“Finding mice for Amelia Batterby most likely.” Ciara shuddered again, then took a step closer. “Really, Maddie, you should give him more chores, or he’ll only get himself into trouble.”
Very likely Ciara was right. Maddie knew most of the children here had chores; it was a matter of necessity on the frontier. And certainly she could use the help. Only the fact that Michael was doing the laundry now gave her time to be with Ciara. She’d have to thank him for that.
She’d seen the look on his face when he’d spotted the piles of soiled clothes. She was beginning to think he was unskilled at hiding his feelings. And he’d had every right to balk. Doing the laundry was hot, dirty work. Yet he’d made no complaint to her. That was to his credit.
All the same, she hated giving Ciara and Aiden more chores. She’d been working since she was Ciara’s age, and there were moments she was tired of it already. But lacking chores, she wasn’t sure what to do with her sister, much less Aiden, while she worked. In Five Points, there had always been another family to look after them, other children with whom they could play games. Even school would take up only a part of their time. How else was she to keep them busy?
“What did you do aboard ship?” she asked, taking down the clothes Ciara had hung on the pegs.